Buffalo Sabres Need A Level Head Against The Lightning

The Buffalo Sabres suffered their first loss of the regular season to the Ottawa Sentors Thursday night, and it was not the best display of hockey in the world (but that was relatively expected considering it was the first game of the year). There was an injury to starting goaltender Robin Lehner, and the overall energy level on the ice seemed to be lacking. The main bright spot of the night was rookie Jack Eichel‘s short-side-top-shelf-snipe for his first NHL goal. For the Sabres to have success today, they will need to settle down and keeps level heads.

Related – Sabres Goalie Lehner Suffers Injury In Season Opener

As the Buffalo Sabres go to work against the Lightning today, they will need to not only keep a level head, but they must also be on the lookout for the Lightning’s main weapons.

Lightning Scope

The Tampa Bay Lightning are the defending Eastern Conference Champions and they still have their core players on the roster from last year. The team came so close to beating the Blackhawks for a Stanley Cup so they are undoubtedly fired up and ready for this year. They recently are coming off of an overtime win against the Flyers that was the first 3 on 3 in NHL history so their gears are turning quite well.

The usual suspects for the Tampa Bay Lightning are Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, Tyler Johnson, and Nikita Kucherov and they will be just as dangerous tonight, but the Lightning have a new hidden weapon on their top line this year. Jonathan Drouin is playing on Tampa’s top line with Stamkos and is currently a hidden scoring threat. If the Sabres hope to succeed tonight, then they will need to contain the offense that runs rampant on the Lightning’s roster.

Sabres Scope

The Buffalo Sabres are down a starting goaltender, but Chad Johnson will get the call today in net. Johnson came in for Lehner in relief on Thursday and played pretty well honestly. He will function as the goaltender tonight, but for him to have success, his defensive core needs to step up and make the plays in their zone. They did a good job in the last game, but the puck still found its way into the net twice so there is still some things they can do better.

The offense for the Buffalo Sabres needs to roll forwards and start putting more pressure of the opposing goalie much earlier. The pressure from the Sabres offense was minute until the third period last game, so there needs to be a bigger push from them, especially from the Ryan O’Reilly line. Jack Eichel’s line also needs to get going earlier as well.

The line that seemed to working the hardest and making good things happen in both zones was the Girgensons, Reinhart, Larsson line. The Sabres third line was doing well defensively and was putting some good pressure on in the offensive zone. With the line matches tonight, the Sabres have a good chance.

O’Reilly will function as the shutdown center to Stamkos, Eichel is able to keep up with the speed of Tyler Johnson, and Girgensons can handle the bottom six centers just as well, so I am giving tonight’s advantage to the Sabres.

I predict a final score of 4-3 in regulation with Buffalo coming out on top.

LET’S GO BUFFALO!

Next: Possible Goalie Options For Sabres: Jonas Hiller

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